The Peculiar Thrill of Waiting Until the Last Minute

Back in early April, I accepted a DIY challenge from Jenna of promoanalyzer.com. It’s pretty cool. Jenna sends you some promo swag,you get all crazy crafty with it, and then share your results. And I, as you must know by now, am always up for a challenge. So Jenna sent the bag o’swag to me with a deadline of May 30. Of course I made the deadline. I’m not a flake. The DIY challenge was #1 on the schedule for May 29th and it got done. A day early, even.

Why did I wait til the last minute? Well, I am still riding the roller coaster that I hopped on back in April when I traveled to San Francisco to be a part of Tara Gentiles’s boot camp at CreativeLive. I am still assimilating to the new world which Tara has opened up to me. So much good stuff. Right after that came the Arts Festival, where I only had a month to prepare because they forgot to notify me of my acceptance. (Side note: sometimes you gotta read the signs.)

Also, I was slightly over-scheduled, common among entrepreneurs who have to make hay while the sun shines. I had three deadlines on the same day: the DIY challenge; my San Diego Fair entry; and my daughter’s 25th birthday party. The Fair entry was a piece of cake, since my collection of vintage travel bars was ready to go. Mainly because a logistics failure prevented me from entering them the year prior and they’d been cleaned up, wrapped up, and sitting in a box for the past twelve months just waiting for their chance to be on display and, hopefully, win a ribbon.

In the midst of this, something very unexpected threw off my whole schedule. For several days, my life was solely focused on this top priority (and for now secret) surprise. Luckily, the disruption didn’t last long and I was able to get back on track.

Pretty much. I knew I had to turn something in to Jenna by the 30th, so I scheduled completing the challenge in my planner as the top priority for the 29th and outlined the process in my “Big Project Planner”, so even though I still had no what I was going to make, I had a plan laid out. That way, I wouldn’t forget to do stuff like take pictures of each step. Thankfully, when I opened up the bag that day, I somehow had a bunch of cool ideas, and I had a blast making the projects. I sent Jenna the pictures & the copy as promised, one day before the deadline. Winning!

Then there was the party. I love to throw rad parties, and I have a few hugely popular “party food” recipes in my arsenal. But my daughter is a vegetarian and my family has some picky eaters. And most of my rad party food is meat-centric. So that was rough. But the biggest problem was that I hadn’t properly planned. Not sure how it happened, but the day before the party I realized I hadn’t written out a plan and as a result, there wasn’t going to be enough food. Luckily, it was not too late to meet with my team (husband and son), make a plan and act. The party was a success, I got lots of compliments on the menu and, most importantly, the birthday girl had a lovely time.

The moral of the story is to make plans. Even if you think you got it figured out. Even if you’ve done it so many times, it’s a no brainer. Even if the plan is just “Do this, then this, then this” on a scrap of paper you stick on the fridge.

And also, some of the best work is done at the last minute.

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